Western cyclone., 1887-06-02
uNcolN,s LUCKY ESCAPE.
Failing to Get an Office at Washington He
Raised Himself to the Presidency.


Raised Himself to the Presidency.
The loss of at least four years of the &C.
tive pursuit of his profession would have
been irreparable. leaving out Of view the
strong probability that the singular charm
of Washington life to men who have pas
sion for politics might have kept him there
forever. say Nicolay and Hay, writing in
the Century of LincOlns escape from be-
coming a resident otlice-holder at Wash
ington after his term as Congressman had
expired 1t has been said that residence
in Washington leaves no man precisely as
it found him. This is an axiom which
may be applied to most cities in certain
sense, but it is true in a peculiar degree of
our capital. To the men who come there
from small rural communities in the South
and West, the hustle and stir, the intellec-
tual movement, such as it is, the ordinary
subjects Of conversation, of such vastly
greater importance than anything they
have previously known, the daily and
hourly combatS on the floor of both
Houses, the intrigue and the struggle of
office hunting, which interest vast numbers
besides the office-Seekcrs, the superior
pieuancy and interest of the scandal which
is talked ut u Congressional boarding house
over that which seasons the dull days at
village tavcrn--all this gives SAVIOR to
life in Washington the memory of which
doubles the tedium Of the sequeStered vale
to which the beaten legislator returns when
his brief hour of glory is over 1t is this
which brings to the State Department after
every general election that crowd Of spec
tiers, with their bales Of recommendations
from plying colleagues who have been
re elected, whose diminishing prayers run
down the whole gamut of supplication
from ST. James to ST. Paul of LoandO, and
of whom at the last it may be said, as Mr..
Evarts once said after an unusually heavy
day, "NIany called, but few chosen" Of
those who do not achieve the ruinous sue
cess of going abroad to consulates that will
not pay their board, or missions where
they only avoid daily shame by hiding
their penury and their ignorance away
from observation, great portion yield to
their fate and join that fleet of wrecks
which floats forever Oh the pavement of
Washington.
1t is needless to say that Mr. Lincoln re-
ceived no damage from his term of service
in Washington, but we know Of nothing
which shows SO strongly The pcrilous fas-
cinatiOn of the place as the fact that man
of his extraordinary moral and mental
qualities could ever have thought for
moment Of accepting Il position SO insig-
niticant and incOngruOus as that which he
was more than willing to assume when he
left Congress. He would have filled the
place with honor and crcdit-but at a mon
strous expense. We do not so much
refer to his exceptional career and his great
figure in history these mOmentous cOntin-
gencies could not have suggested them,
selves to him. But the place he was rea-
sonably sure Of filling in the battle of life
should have made subordinate office in
Washington thing out of the question.
He was already u lawyer of skill and repu-
tatiOn All orator upon whom his party re-
lied To speak for them 10 the people An
innate love of combat was in his heart: he
loved discussion like mcdIval school
man. The air was already tremulous with
faint bublcnotes that heralded a conflict Of
giants on field of moral significance to
which he was fully alive and awake, where
he was certain to lead at least his hundreds
and his thousands. Yet if Justin Butter
field had not been a more supple, more
adroit, and less Scrupulous suitor for Office
than himself, Abraham Lincoln would
have sat for four inestimable years at a
bureau desk in the interior department.
and when the hour of action sounded in
Illinois who would have filled the place
which he took as if he had been born
for it?